I have a problem with my usb flash disk. It's a Kingston Datatraveler. I use it intensely, and since yesterday it has become corrupted. I can't remember that I took it out before dismounting (or safely removing, since I mostly use it on a Win7 - VM Ubuntu machine), but that seems to be the most likely cause.
I searched and searched, but it seems everyone gives up eventually on trying to rescue data in this situation. However, I'm stubborn and I need your help.
These are the diagnostics that I did so far:
walle@earth:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
walle@earth:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 21.5 GB, 21474836480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2610 cylinders, total 41943040 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009a95f
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2046 41943039 20970497 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 2048 6000639 2999296 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 6002688 41943039 17970176 83 Linux
walle@earth:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0c76:0005 JMTek, LLC. Transcend Flash disk
walle@earth:~$ ls -laR /dev/disk
/dev/disk:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 100 Sep 21 12:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 16 root root 4180 Sep 21 12:22 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 240 Sep 21 12:22 by-id
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 160 Sep 21 12:22 by-path
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 80 Sep 21 12:22 by-uuid
/dev/disk/by-id:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 240 Sep 21 12:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 100 Sep 21 12:22 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 21 11:08 ata-VBOX_CD-ROM_VB0-01f003f6 -> ../../sr0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 21 11:29 ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB0f06d815-0d4e855f -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:28 ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB0f06d815-0d4e855f-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:08 ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB0f06d815-0d4e855f-part5 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:08 ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB0f06d815-0d4e855f-part6 -> ../../sda6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 21 11:29 scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB0f06d815-0d4e855f -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:28 scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB0f06d815-0d4e855f-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:08 scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB0f06d815-0d4e855f-part5 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:08 scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB0f06d815-0d4e855f-part6 -> ../../sda6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 21 12:07 usb-GENERIC_USB_Mass_Storage-0:0 -> ../../sdb
/dev/disk/by-path:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 160 Sep 21 12:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 100 Sep 21 12:22 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 21 11:08 pci-0000:00:01.1-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sr0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 21 12:07 pci-0000:00:0b.0-usb-0:1:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 21 11:29 pci-0000:00:0d.0-scsi-1:0:0:0 -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:28 pci-0000:00:0d.0-scsi-1:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:08 pci-0000:00:0d.0-scsi-1:0:0:0-part5 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:08 pci-0000:00:0d.0-scsi-1:0:0:0-part6 -> ../../sda6
/dev/disk/by-uuid:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 80 Sep 21 12:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 100 Sep 21 12:22 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:08 1587b411-663d-4b75-93e0-06ed4f76f55c -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 21 11:08 28c80af8-f546-46ec-9b63-38cbd7c0b9f2 -> ../../sda6
GParted doesn't detect the device, gnome-disk-utility does, but under "Capacity" it says "No media detected".
testdisk doesn't detect it either.
Additionally, the symptoms on Win 7 are that the drive is visible, but not accessible in explorer ("Please insert a disk into Removable disk F:" when trying to browse it, and "Cannot open volume for direct access." when trying to run chkdsk).
My hopes sprang up when I plugged it into a Vista computer: it detects it and can dismount it. I still cannot access anything on there, but when I search for some files by name they show up in results, although I still can't open them.
Please help if you have any idea on how I can recover my data.
Any help would be much appreciated.
dmesg
in a terminal window; this often helps debug the problems.